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Is it actually possible to drink just beer? Isn't it a net dehydrator? I drink a lot of beer, but always end up drinking a ton of water, certainly way more than

• porknubbins 3y ago
  Just a guess but I’ve heard medieval beer would’ve been low alcohol and I think most of the diuretic effect of alcoholic drinks is due to the body processing the alcohol. So it might be possible.
  • reillyse 3y ago
    There were many different strengths of beer which (often)corresponded to different runnings/washing’s of the malt. The initial wort has higher amounts of sugars/fermentables while the later washes have significantly less. It could get down to 2-3% which. As to being a diuretic I think people are confused about how that works. It’s not like adding minus water if you drink coffee or alcohol, eg you wouldn’t die of dehydration if all you had to drink was coffee or beer.
• coderintherye 3y ago
  The idea that beer (at least normal low alcohol content beer) dehydrates you is also something of a myth: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26702122/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26702122/
• bregma 3y ago
  Your daily beers would have been a "small" beer like the kind they served school children in Belgium until very recently [0]. Maybe 1.5% alcohol by volume tops. It's not the alcohol that prevents the spread of disease but the fact that the water gets boiled for hours during manufacture. By the time that's done you could have used water drawn from John Snow's well in London and it would be fine. [0] https://www.amazingbelgium.be/2016/08/till-70s-belgian-kids-got-to-drink-beer.html https://www.amazingbelgium.be/2016/08/till-70s-belgian-kids-...